COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIR - Aroha Te Pareake Mead

Edition 4, June 2010

Recent news has been dominated by coverage of the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the Oil Spill in the Gulf region, highlighting that whether something is a natural disaster or caused by the actions (or inactions) of people – everyone is ultimately impacted. One can never take for granted the fragile balance that keeps mother earth healthy. Nor can one ignore the evidence that an environmental disaster in one location will affect many other locations. While we wait for governments and multinational to tighten emissions regulations, environmental and corporate responsibility, many citizens of the world are mobilizing to create change at a much speedier pace and broader vision.

One of the most recent initiatives was the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in April in Cochabamba Bolivia. “There are two ways forward: Either save capitalism, or save Mother Earth”, said Bolivian President Evo Morales at a UN Press Conference with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon when discussing the outcomes of the 35,000-strong Cochabamba Conference The proposals from the Conference included a 50% reduction of emissions by developed countries, the payment of climate debt to developing countries, a proposed Universal Declaration on Mother Earth Rights, and a call to replace the destructive and consumerist capitalist system at the root of the climate crisis.

GUEST EDITORIAL - GRAZIA BORRINI-FEYERABEND

15% PLUS was heard among the corridor buzzwords at CBD SBSTTA in Nairobi, this last May, as a protected area conservation target to be discussed at COP 10… What does it mean? Is there any value in this new idea? A few opinions are emerging about this and you may wish to be aware of them and make up your mind…

First, the facts. Among depressing unmet biodiversity targets, a main positive indicator was flashed to the attention of SBSTTA delegates in Nairobi : worldwide coverage of protected areas. Today, the coverage of terrestrial ecosystems that enjoy legal protection is 12.2% and the coverage of legally protected territorial seas (to 12 nautical miles offshore) is 5.9%. Both values have been growing importantly in the last decades. In total, there are today about 120,000 official protected areas (PAs) in the world, most of which are government-established and run. A primary intention behind the global protected area effort has been to conserve the planet's biodiversity... a goal far from being met. Only slightly more than half of the 825 terrestrial ecological regions identified around the world actually reach 10% protection, and only 18% of the marine (both values say nothing about the quality of their management). In addition, many sites crucial for biodiversity continue to lie outside protected areas. In other words, reaching the 10% coverage— a target that floated for some time among conservationists - has not stopped the loss of biodiversity. Surely, however, it would have been naive to expect that it would. For that, many direct and indirect drivers need to be tackled, much need to change in global and local resource consumption and enormous efforts need to go towards restoring ecosystems and connectivity. Protected areas, however, are an essential part of the overall picture— a part that needs to be strengthened in quantity and quality. Can “ 15% PLUS ” help?

Sharing Power: A New Vision for Development UPDATE

Plans for the CEESP Conference, Sharing Power: A New Vision for Development ”, are well advanced. The dates and venue are confirmed, 11-15 January, 2011, Liberty Centre, Whakatane, New Zealand.

It is a multi-disciplinary conference that builds on the vision of , "A world where equity is at the root of a dynamic harmony between people and nature, as well as among peoples. A world of diversity, productivity and integrity of natural systems. A world in which production and consumption patterns are sustainable, and where cultural diversity is intertwined with biological diversity and both generate abundant livelihoods opportunities ."

Confirmed speakers include the President and DG of IUCN, Ashok Khosla and Julia Martin-Lefevre, both CEESP members, as well as Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to receive the Nobel prize in economics (also a CEESP member). Respected indigenous sustainable development advocate Winona La Duke (Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe)) and Sir Hirini Moko-Mead (Ngati Awa), Three of the six IUCN Commission Chairs will be participating. Nikita Lopoukhine (Canada), Chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas and Shelia Abed (Paraguay) Chair of the Commission on Environmental Law.

There will be a limited number of travel grants for international participants. The Call for Contributions and Registrations will be open mid June. Please keep checking the Conference website for regular updates. www.ceespsharingpower.org

CEESP MEMBERS NEWS

The Commission farewells Glenn Switkes, a member of TGER, respected colleague, and a river warrior of unbreakable passion.

Glenn died on December 21 in a São Paolo hospital of complications linked to lung cancer. He was 58. Glenn devoted most of the last two decades of his life to the cause of keeping the rivers of South America, especially in the Amazon, flowing free of dams and shipping channels.

A historical Conference occured in Cochabamba, Bolivia in April. An estimated 30,00 people participated to discuss a comprehensive programe of action on climate change and the 'Rights of Mother Earth'.

Despite the disappointment that a national Human Rights Act has been relegated to the Australian Government's back-burner, Indigenous Australians are getting on with advocating and promoting their human rights.

A new advocacy network - the Indigenous Human Rights Network Australia, (pronounced ‘er na') - focusses on human rights based approaches to a range of challenges, including areas of interest to CEESP such as gender, governance, discrimination, water, traditional knowledge, climate change and country.

TGER continues to lead CEESP "Video Voices" work encouraging rural people to take advantage of new opportunities of modern technologies and communications media to bring their voices and ideas about biodiversity and sustainable development to global debates via videos posted on the internet. A training workshop was held in Villa Montes, Bolivia, in the Gran Chaco-- a high biodiversity region that includes the world´s largest dry forest...

A field update from the ALDAW Network (Ancestral Land/Domain Watch) May 2010

Between July and September 2009, a mission organized by the Philippines-based Ancestral Land/Domain Watch (ALDAW) and the Centre for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD) at the University of Kent demonstrated how the ecological balance and the survival of vulnerable indigenous communities on Palawan Island (a “Man and Biosphere Reserve” program of UNESCO) is being threatened by the ongoing mining rush.

The REDD and Communities Task Force of CEESP and the Global Forest Coalition have started a new initiative to map, document and promote successful examples of Indigenous and non-Indigenous community-driven forest conservation and restoration, and the incentive systems and policy frameworks that have made them work.

The purpose is to promote appropriate incentive systems and policy frameworks to support Indigenous territories and community conserved areas (ICCAs), including within the scope of policies to reduce deforestation as a climate change mitigation strategy.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Wuthathi Land Trust have secured funding from The Christensen Fund to undertake an Indigenous cultural re-generation project on Cape York Peninsula, Australia.

The Wuthathi (pronounced Woot-tar-tee ) people are the Traditional Owners of a stunning area in remote Cape York Peninsula in northern Australia.

Community action is at the heart of several connectivity conservation initiatives in Australia that aim to protect biodiversity, and strengthen the resilience of ecosystems so that they can survive and adapt to climate change and other threats.

Community conservation areas in Australia are expanding strongly in the form Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), and private reserves in the Great Eastern Ranges (GER) initiative.

Over the last several decades, it has become accepted wisdom that improving the status of women is one of the most critical levers of international development. When women are educated and can earn and control income, a number of good results follow: infant mortality declines, child health and nutrition improve, agricultural productivity rises, population growth slows, economies expand, and cycles of poverty are broken.

But the challenges remain dauntingly large. In the Middle East, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, large and persistent gender gaps in access to education, health care, technology, and income -- plus a lack of basic rights and pervasive violence against women -- keep women from being fully productive members of society.

There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Noho documents the plight of the people of Takuu. One of the first films to record a community evacuating their home because of climate change.

The island of Takuu is sinking. The people there say that rising sea levels are making life impossible. Soon the small Polynesian community will have to relocate to under-resourced Bouganville 250 Km to the South West in Melanesia.

With a focus on developing stronger regional networks and collaborations in the Asia-Pacific, the APSTSN has formed to better address environmental, cultural, social, ethical, and political and policy issues raised by scientific innovation and technological change in our region. Membership is steadily growing, stimulated by our inaugural conference in late 2009.

The conference called Our Lands, Our Waters, Our Peoples attracted 140 participants from China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, Australia, Taiwan, Aotearoa New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia. They arrived at Brisbane for critical discussions about regional S&T developments concerning environment, culture, indigenous knowledges/perspectives, techno-life sciences, citizenship and governance. Our strong focus on environment and Indigenous themes was considered by many as a valuable ‘point of difference' from other more formal US and European organisations. An essential part of setting up the conference's success was gaining good sponsorship of which CEESP sponsorship for Indigenous participation was particularly valued.

REPORTS BY CEESP MEMBERS

On March 7-12, 2010, more than 800 Mesoamerican participants, together with a number of researchers and scholars from around the world, discussed about the main experiences on protected areas management in the region.

The Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) and the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) share a Strategic Direction on Governance, Communities, Equity and Livelihood Rights in Relation to Protected Areas which deals with social issues pertaining to Protected Areas.

Members of the Strategic Direction took on the responsibility of contributing to the PoWPA review process and elaborating ways to resolve areas of underperformance in the implementation of the PoWPA, notably Element 2.

The Global Diversity Fund (GDF), IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) co-sponsored a workshop on 'Community Conservation in Practice, (CCIP) from 6-8 May 2010, in Tofino, British Columbia.

Led by Eli Enns, Tla-o-qui-aht Nation Building Program (Canada) and Jamili Nais, Deputy Director, Sabah Parks (Malayisa), the workshop brought together forty-five participants from fifteen countries from across Asia, Africa, Pacific and the Americas to explore international and national policies, contemporary concepts and exemplary case studies of community conservation.

First Meeting of the IPCCA Local Assessments: Indigenous Epistemologies and Methods for Responding to Climate Change, 1-7 April 2010, Panama

This report, prepared by the IPCCA Secretariat, provides a synthesis of the main themes discussed and results that emerged from the methodological workshop held during the first meeting of the IPCCA local assessments in Panama City and Usdup, Kuna Yala April 1-7, 2010. The workshop represents a significant step in the implementation of the IPCCA initiative, in which currently 9 local assessments have initiated assessment activities in a diversity of biocultural systems around the world.

This paper is concerned with the bio-cultural patrimonies of Cambodia that still are, or would benefit being, under the governance and care of the indigenous peoples and local communities customarily associated with them.

Such patrimonies – internationally referred to as “Indigenous Territories and Areas conserved by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities”, in short, ICCAs – are recognised by the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recommends their support. National recognition to respond to the CBD and other UN obligations has to follow suit, but it is often hampered by difficulties related to policy and legislation, and problems related to implementation and practice

We are pleased to share news on the participation of the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR) in the Fourteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 14) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 10 to 21 May 2010, at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. A strong PAR delegation, being led by Dr. Toby Hodgkin, Paul Bordoni and Sibonginkosi Khumalo, will be organising, co-hosting and supporting a series of events in and around the meeting.

IUCN NEWS & UPDATES

This report reflects the progress made by BBP in 2009; the stories are selected to present our results in terms of delivering the planned programme activities.

Some of the highlights in 2009 were the signing of new agreements with Nespresso and WBCSD. We also continued to pursue negotiations with Rio Tinto, which included four site visits and a two day wrap up meeting where we discussed opportunities and risks of the potential collaboration.

The world changed one summer's day in 1858. In a field in Pennsylvania, in the United States, the world's first specially constructed deep well struck oil.

The trickle of oil from the Earth, long extracted by humans in small amounts, became a torrent. Relatively easy to find, extract, process, store and transport, and above all cheap, liquid oil quickly became our most important energy source to cook, heat, cool and transport things.

2010 EVENTS

Chair Aroha Mead will be participating in this event. This international conference is being co-hosted by the Vanuatu National Cultural Council, the Melanesian Indigenous Land Defence Alliance (MILDA) and the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty, with support from the Christensen Fund.

Participants in the Conference will come from across Melanesia (Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and West Papua) as well as from other Pacific Island nations, New Zealand, Australia and further afield.

Recognizing various ongoing climate change phenomena in the Himalayan Mountains, a group of people and organizations from the Himalayas have proposed a collaborative initiative, called ‘Climate Himalaya Initiative'.

Prakriti, a mountain environment group will host the Secretariat for this initiative in India. The initiative is set to be launched officially on 5 June 2010, on the occasion of World Environment Day, with two major objectives...

Ecosystem management and restoration in Hawai‘i and across the Pacific continues to evolve.

Over the past decade landowners, communities, agencies, and governments have begun to work together more collaboratively, utilizing diverse knowledge systems and decision-making approaches. The 2010 HCC will highlight success stories from Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Micronesia, and other Pacific Islands.

Join us in an exploration of this emerging trend in ecosystem management and restoration through formal presentations, informal discussions, and other opportunities to talk story with scientists and citizens, cultural practitioners and researchers. For further information click here.

The CBD COP10 meeting being held in Nagoya , Japan will be very significant for a wide range of CEESP interests. It will be important for the Commission to have a strong presence. If you are intending to register for the CBD COP10 please contact ceesp@iucn.org as soon as your plans are confirmed so you can be included in any CEESP events.

PUBLICATIONS

CEESP member (TILCEPA/TGER), Fred Nelson, of Maliasili Initiatives based in Arusha, Tanzania, organized and edited this recent volume on the politics of natural resource governance in eastern and southern Africa.

The volume, with contributions from across the region from leading scholars and practitioners, was produced through the IUCN Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group (SSC) and with additional funding from the US-based Bradley Fund for the Environment. It focuses on understanding the political processes that determine natural resource governance regimes, with a focus on the factors that enable and constrain reforms that place greater authority over lands and natural resources in the hands of local communities.”

CEESP TSEAPRISE member, Robert Goodland has been involved in a significant report on human rights and the World Bank.

This report argues that human rights are an integral part of effective and sustainable development, and thus should be explicitly considered in all World Bank Group (WBG)* investment decisions. We examine the WBG's integration of human rights standards into its operations - highlighting accomplishments, shortcomings, and barriers and suggest ways forward.

The international human rights framework has a complex and often politicized history.

CEESP Financial Officer and TSEAPRISE member recommends this new publication if you have any interest in China or how the government and people deal with nature and conservation.

Where the Dragon Meets the Angry River: Nature and Power in the People's Republic of China.,Ed Grumbine, Island Press.

China's meteoric rise to economic powerhouse might be charted with dams. Every river in the country has been tapped to power exploding cities and factories—every river but one. Running through one of the richest natural areas in the world, the Nujiang's raging waters were on the verge of being dammed when a 2004government moratorium halted construction...

“Towards Food Sovereignty”, 2009. By Michel Pimbert. The Gatekeeper Series No 141, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

CEESP Deputy Chair, Michel Pimbert has written the following Report. SUMMARY: Localised food systems provide the foundations of people's nutrition, incomes, economies, ecologies and culture throughout the world. In this way food is primarily sold, processed, resold and consumed locally, with many people deriving their incomes and livelihoods through work and activities at different points of the food chain, from seed to plate. These local food systems provide a livelihood for more than 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest dwellers and artisanal fisherfolk worldwide.

While the potential synergies between a global peasant federation advocating food sovereignty and far-flung smallholder movements practicing agroecology may seem obvious, efforts to bring agrarian advocacy to farmer-to-farmer networks have run up against the historical distrust between development NGOs implementing sustainable agriculture projects and the peasant organisations that make up the new agrarian movements.

CEESP TILCEPA and TGER member and Regional Vice-Chair (Oceania), Lea Scherl has been involved in the production of the following report.

The 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) held in 2008 called on Parties to ensure protected areas contribute to the eradication of poverty and to sustainable development. Understanding the social effects of protected areas is a prerequisite for ensuring this contribution, but to date there is little data available to allow this.

If you have wondered how this Newsletter is produced, the answer is that a team of three people pull all of the contributions together, edit, format and shape them into the Newsletter you are reading now. CEESP Chair, Aroha Mead compiles, edits and organises the sections for all contributions, and a young couple, Nikolasa and Potaua Biasiny-Tule based in Rotorua, NZ, format everything and develop the CEESP on-line newsletter. It isn't an easy exericse, as all items in the Newsletter have to be hosted on the IUCN-CEESP website in order for you to be able to open the <<read more>> prompt.

Potaua comes from Niue and is also Maori (Ngati Pikiao, Tuhoe,Te Whanau a Apanui, Ngati Kahungunu). Nikolasa is Puerto Rican and Dutch and together they have two children, Atutahi (5) and Hiona (2). They have established a web-based business TangataWhenua.com that specialises in managing digital projects including website development and the promotion of Maori news and indigenous views.

We hope you enjoy reading these Newsletters and welcome any feedback you might have on how we can improve. (Aroha, Nikolasa and Potaua)